Grab your digging tools and prepare for Gem Rush from designer Jeremy Lennert, an easy to learn, one- to six-player blitz to build a magical gem mine. Use your gem cards to construct new rooms, and use the rooms to replenish your gems. Race your friends for fortune in rush mode, or work together to save the mine in crisis mode. Either way, you've got to dig fast and manage your gems carefully.

A typical card includes two gemstones; you can count it as either, or as both, if you can find the right spot to use them. The game board changes each time you play, as the playing area is constructed out of modular room tiles, each with different abilities and different opportunities for further construction.

Get your mining picks ready and dig up Gem Rush today!

Game Data:

Number of Players: 1-6Ages: 13 and upPlaying Time: Approximately 45 minutesComplexity: 3 on a 9 scaleSolitaire Suitability: 9 on a 9 scale

Gem Rush by Stewart Pilling (Nerd Rock from the Sun)I like Victory Point Games. They focus on the game rather than production, which gives it a certain charm, but even then it still looks really pretty and it is a very nice game. It plays in under an hour and can play up to 6 players and it works well with 6, which is a hard thing for a game to do. I own a lot of games that are meant to be for 2-6 players, but 6 is not advised, this is not one of them. It falls into the ‘filler’ category nicely and plays in about 45 minutes.Gem Rush Offers Good Times by Cody Carlson (Deseret News)Gem Rush is a simple, clever, kooky little game that takes some real strategy to win. It can be very frustrating not getting the cards you need, but the rooms themselves offer special ways to improve your chances. Finding out how to best use your limited resources is at the core of this game. Working together, the tension builds steadily as players see their gem deck slowly thinning, and must make increasingly difficult decisions in order to keep constructing rooms and earning victory points.

A lot of fun, families and lovers of light strategy games should really take to Gem Rush.

Reviews

Gem Rush by Stewart Pilling (Nerd Rock from the Sun)

I like Victory Point Games. They focus on the game rather than production, which gives it a certain charm, but even then it still looks really pretty and it is a very nice game. It plays in under an hour and can play up to 6 players and it works well with 6, which is a hard thing for a game to do. I own a lot of games that are meant to be for 2-6 players, but 6 is not advised, this is not one of them. It falls into the ‘filler’ category nicely and plays in about 45 minutes.

Gem Rush Offers Good Times by Cody Carlson (Deseret News)

Gem Rush is a simple, clever, kooky little game that takes some real strategy to win. It can be very frustrating not getting the cards you need, but the rooms themselves offer special ways to improve your chances. Finding out how to best use your limited resources is at the core of this game. Working together, the tension builds steadily as players see their gem deck slowly thinning, and must make increasingly difficult decisions in order to keep constructing rooms and earning victory points.

A lot of fun, families and lovers of light strategy games should really take to Gem Rush.